


Part of the Family

by Sanrei



Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff, Gen, How Do I Tag, Mild Angst, Mild Injuries, My First Fanfic, Ruddiger is an Emotional Support Raccoon, Tags May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:55:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23293594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanrei/pseuds/Sanrei
Summary: Quirin isn't exactly thrilled with the idea of a farm pest as a pet.Ruddiger is too stubborn to be run off.Varian needs a friend.----------This is mainly a fic told from Quirin and Ruddiger's POV. I wanted to explore how Ruddiger comes into Varian's life and sticks with him through it all, and how Quirin comes to accept and love Ruddiger as part of the family and become a more open father to Varian.
Relationships: Quirin & Ruddiger, Quirin & Varian (Disney), Ruddiger & Varian (Disney)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 68





	1. Prologue (The boy and the raccoon)

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfiction ever. I've participated in plenty of descriptive RP but never really sat down to write anything resembling a story on my own. So, here goes! This is just for fun, but I will never turn away constructive criticism.  
> \----------  
> Varian saving Ruddiger from a trap as their first meeting is not a unique concept, but it gives Ruddiger a meaningful entrance into Varian's life, and a meaningful springboard for Varian's humane traps, and I can't resist just wrapping that all up into a nice pretty package. I only hope I do it justice!

The young raccoon babbles airily to no one in particular, quite pleased with himself. His mother had warned him away from the apple trees lining the edge of the small village after the humans had started laying traps down, but he was smarter than that. It took some careful exploration but he had managed to find a large ash, split by lightning during some past storm, its bare branches now intermingling among the lush green of an apple tree at the border of the grove.

He smacks his lips, mouth watering as he anticipates the crisp sweet reward for his efforts before he jumps up and scales the shattered trunk with ease. Following a strange and winding path that makes sense only to him, he scrambles along the larger branches then begins to pick his way through the tangled and brittle mess of slender twigs. He’s so close the smell of ripening apples fills his every breath. Just along that branch, carefully, and…

Something snaps.

A shrieking trill catches in his throat as his world becomes a swirling vortex of twilight sky, leaves, and branches. His stomach lurches with a feeling of weightlessness then suddenly the breath is punched out of him as the branch he’s clinging desperately to halts in its descent. He only has a second to take in the green and red around him, back legs kicking air, before the branch snaps under his weight. He plummets to the ground, taking the mass of dead wood with him. The sound he makes when he hits the ground is deafening and unnatural. A metallic click and snap accompanied by the crunching of the branches. It’s so loud his instincts take over, and he’s already running away from the tree.

His claws card through soft grass then dig into the rich soil beneath. Even as he tears up the ground beneath him he can find no purchase, he’s not moving! A dull pain in his back leg and the sudden knowledge that something has hold of him snaps him into full blown panic and he twists and thrashes with renewed fervor. He feels his leg slip but before it can inspire any hope the raccoon is pulled out of his frantic state at the sound of a branch snapping and a new, sharper pain near his ankle. He twists around to fight, but his paws only find something cold and unyielding. Something metal. _Oh._

The frightened screeching dies in his throat. Had he been making that much noise the whole time? Panting heavily the raccoon swivels his head to and fro, checking for any threats before he allows himself to turn back and take stock of his situation. It’s one of the traps his mother warned him about. His back leg and a myriad of branches that came down with him are wedged between the harsh metal bands. Shaky paws feel up and down the curve of the trap and the branches, looking for a weakness or a way out. With some pain, he finds he can move his leg. The rough edges are digging into the skin, but at least nothing feels broken. He makes a few awkward and ultimately unsuccessful attempts to position his back foot in such a way that he can slip it through the gap. Frustration begins to overshadow the pain of such an endeavor and as he proceeds his wriggling with increasing vigor, one of the branches caught in the trap shifts, and the bands close a fraction more. He flinches in pain and freezes as he realizes that the branches are the only thing keeping the trap from closing down on him all the way.

“I’ll be right in, Dad! I thought I heard something over here!”

The cold dread that had set in grips the young raccoon further, washing over him in waves that threaten to set him into panic again. The voice was so close. The humans were coming for him! As the sound of footsteps draw closer his eyes dart wildly, searching uselessly for something that might help him. By the time a green light falls over the small animal he’s trembling bodily, shrunk in on himself and mouth agape. The fact that it’s a boy dressed in over-sized clothing, all freckles and shaggy black hair, does nothing to calm him. The green light radiating from one of his gloved hands cast him in eerie shadows, making him seem more of a monster come to claim him. He shakes his head and chitters fearfully, as if to beg for mercy. He almost doesn’t hear the distressed noise the boy makes, followed shortly by more hushed and soothing tones. “Wha- oh no! Ah- hey there, it’s ok! It’s ok little guy! I’m not going to hurt you.”

Eyes locked on the boy, he sees him lean to the side to catch a better look at the trap and how his expression darkens at the sight. “Tch, this is how they’re trying to deal with the pest problem? It’s cruel!” The boy slowly drops down to his knees, setting the glowing green bauble aside. The light cast on him now is less extreme, and he begins to look less like a monster and more like a scrawny farm kid. He puts his gloved hands up disarmingly. “Hey it’s ok, I know you’re scared. I promise I won’t hurt you. I just need to reach over there and press th-”

One of the black gloves grows larger in the raccoon’s vision and a renewed wave of fear courses through him. His ears flatten, the fur on his back raises straight up, and his ringed tail puffs up to twice its size. He tries to growl but all that spills forth is shrill, frightened screeching. The glove withdraws sharply, and the boy’s face is visible again, his expression guilty. “Woah woah, I’m sorry. Sorry!” He whispers urgently, sitting back on his heels. “You’re right! Too fast. Too scary! Um, maybe if I...”

The boy slips the gloves off and sets them down, bringing bare hands back up for display, fingers wiggling. “Just me now, no more scary gloves! They’re a little big for me I admit, but hey, safety first, right?” He snorts softly with a small laugh at himself, then settles into a kind, apologetic smile as he sits quietly for a minute. The raccoon's bristling fur slowly smooths out in the silence that follows, his ears twitching forward.

The boy takes this as a good sign and leans forward a fraction. “Listen,” he's practically whispering, his voice gentle. “you’re hurting, and you’re scared, and have no reason to trust me, but I need you to trust me if I’m going to get you out of this.” He lifts up has hands, displaying his palms and adds, “And I’m going to have to trust you. I need to put my unprotected hands close to you to undo that trap, and you could bite me and scratch me up, and then… well then I’d probably pass out.”

The raccoon is still trembling, but it’s in waves that are gradually decreasing in frequency and intensity as he comes to the realization that he isn’t being attacked. He starts to actually, truly listen to what the kid is saying. Words of trust, of freedom. The tension releases from his form, and he trills nervously up at the boy. All the fear and adrenaline is exhausting, his trapped foot is starting to feel prickly, and the ache of the metal pinching into his skin increasingly harder to ignore.

“Varian!”

They both flinch.

The boy, Varian, holds a finger up to his lips, begging silence from the raccoon, then yells over his shoulder. “Just a second, dad! I’ll be right there I promise!” His head swivels back around and his hands drop to his knees. He whispers again, more urgently now. “We’re running short on time, and I don’t know what my dad will do if he finds you here. I’m going to unlatch the trap, and then… and then I’ll make sure you never have to worry about one of these traps ever again! Do you trust me?”

The raccoon studies Varian’s big, pleading eyes for a few tense moments, small nervous noises bubbling from his throat as he mulls over his options. He tries not to linger too long on the actual lack of them. He isn’t really in control of this situation. He has to hope that the boy will make good on his word. He slowly bobs his head up and down, then immediately squeezes his eyes shut. His whiskers pick up the displacement of air as the boy’s hand moves by.

Silence, then-

**CLICK**

The trap falls open with a scraping of metal and clattering of broken branches, loud enough to make the raccoon jump with surprise as his leg comes loose. He opens his eyes to see the boy sitting still as a statue, one arm reaching out halfway and eyes wide and curious.

Varian lets out the breath he was holding in the form of a short chuckle of relief. “Heh. There. That wasn’t so bad! Aheh. Um. Ahem! How’s the leg?”

While he feels a measure more comfortable in his presence, the injured animal doesn’t take his eyes off the human boy in front of him as he puts weight down on his leg and gives it a once over with one of his sensitive front paws. It’s sore, but he’s pretty sure he can run on it. He huffs out a sigh and settles down onto his haunches, a shiver of relief visibly crawling down the fur of his back as he does. The two stare at one another in the soft green glow of the glass vial with the crickets chirping all around them for the space of a few oddly comfortable moments.

The raccoon takes a better look at the kid sitting across from him: all smiles and a little fidgety now that the ordeal is over. This boy had said he’d help him, and he did. If only he could thank him in a way he understands. He tries to look as grateful as a raccoon can muster, taking in a breath to say something in a tone he hopes a human might understand when a twig snaps close by, heralding the approach of another.

“Varian, you shouldn’t be playing around in the apple groves after dark, you can get hurt.”

The raccoon is off like a shot and through the undergrowth, letting the voices fade into the distance behind him.

“Yeah dad, about that...”


	2. First Impression

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Quirin eats a sandwich, meets a trash panda, and I pray my grammar hasn't suffered from lack of sleep.

The early morning birdsong gives way as the sun climbs higher into the sky, its warmth beginning to chase the dew off row after row of young sprouting cabbage. Quirin is humming a simple tune as he works, a deep throaty sound that rumbles through his chest, punctuated by a steady rhythm of minor stops and grunts each time he swings his arm down and his hoe breaks earth. He’s been at this for a few hours already: The birdsong, the far-off sounds of Old Corona just starting to awaken, the rhythmic crunch of metal parting earth, and his own modest melody combine to form a mantra that he finds calming.

The man is torn out of his simple meditation when his hoe strikes something unyielding, The vibration caused by metal hitting metal sends a shuddering jolt up the wooden handle and into his elbows. His humming bleeds into an annoyed grunt as he uses the blade of his tool to turn the foreign object out of the soil. Quirin’s mouth forms a tense line and with a heavy sigh he bends forward to pick up a piece of one of the exploded boilers. Varian’s most recent disaster.

Quirin tosses the scrap toward the edge of the field to be gathered later. He presses the flat blade of the hoe against the ground and leans his weight onto it, taking a moment to scan the village around him. Other than some ongoing building repairs, the mess from the explosion has been all but cleaned up, a far sight from the smoking mess it was a few weeks prior. Movement at the edge of the apple grove draws his eyes further along and he can see his son taking his morning rounds among his sticky traps, looking for trapped pests and refilling the mechanisms.

At least that endeavor wasn’t literally blowing up in their faces. Quirin was reluctant at first to let Varian replace the metal traps with his experimental concoctions, but the boy looked so concerned about the harm they were capable of causing that he finally relented. For as intelligent as his son was he seemed equally as kind and as he pleaded his case the only thing Quirin could see in those blue eyes was Ulla’s shining through. Varian was so much like his mother it hurt. The father finds himself caught between a feeling of pride and gut-wrenching fear at this thought, and all he can do is watch the boy from afar, brows knitting with concern.

The sun is nearing its zenith when Quirin finally breaks away from the field, washing up and escaping into the cool of their home for a brief rest and some lunch. He allows the heavy wooden door to fall shut behind him as he wipes the excess water from his face with a clean handkerchief. Ducking under a small stone arch, he glances around the dim light of the kitchen, eyes falling on a plate of sandwiches and an earthenware jug set on the table.

Quirin pours himself some water from the jug and tries to ignore the creaking of his joints as he seats himself at the table with a stiffness that only melts away when his weight is no longer on his feet. He stares at the plate in front of him for a few quiet moments before slowly looking up to the empty chair across from him. A flash of sorrow sets into his brown eyes, glassy and deep, before he shuts them hard, suppressing the notion. Varian taking his lunch downstairs to his lab isn’t something new. This isn’t the first time. _But it’s happening more and more often, isn’t it? He’s_ _avoiding you_ _._

Quirin growls under his breath and shakes his head, letting those thoughts fall away. Opening his eyes he picks up one of the sandwiches and bites into it with a purpose. He has a job to get back to. Responsibilities. He doesn’t have time for these doubts. He remembers himself, the disciplined soldier, and forges forward. He’s already working on the second sandwich when he hears something strange. He freezes, food in his mouth still half-chewed, his eyes moving carefully to look on the worn wooden door to the root cellar. It’s ajar, just slightly. Did Varian forget to close it? His expression darkens. Or perhaps he surprised someone when he entered the home?

Time slows down for Quirin. He sits, staring down the door for what feels like ages with his breath caught in his chest and his ears straining against the silence. The standoff barely lasts a minute before his shoulders sink fractionally. Mouth still full of sandwich, he chews once. Then twice. As he swallows the bite down he begins to wonder if he was just hearing things, but before he can relax completely a muffled thud and the cracking of wicker sound from within, spurring him into action. The man who had earlier set himself down in his chair with a slow weariness is now on his feet and closing the space between him and the root cellar with surprising alacrity. Not wanting to go into this empty handed, Quirin grabs the nearest makeshift weapon he can get his hands on. The broom leaning against the wall will have to do. He stops in front of the door, strong fingers flexing around the wood of his makeshift staff. A beat, and then he flings the door wide.

Broom at the ready, it takes a moment for Quirin’s sight to adjust to the dark of the small room. His eyes stare hard through the nothing that hangs in the air where he expected someone or something to be. Bewildered, his gaze drops to the mess strewn about the cool stone floor. In the middle of an upturned bushel of apples sits a chubby raccoon, eyes wide and jaw hung open. A half eaten apple slides out of its paws and wobbles to rest at the foot of the short steps. Quirin’s expression falls flat with annoyance at both himself and the sight before him. He grits his teeth. He isn’t sure how the pest managed to get into their kitchen but that hardly matters now; he just needs to get it out. “That will be just enough of that.” He growls out as he reaches for the raccoon with a large open hand. The animal shrieks, and all hell breaks loose.

The raccoon darts around the room with surprising speed as it dodges hand and broom, baskets of vegetables spilling in the chaos. Quirin may be getting old, but he’s not dead, and he doesn’t have to track the grey, chittering streak for very long as it bounces from shelf to shelf for him to anticipate its next move. “Got you!” He announces as he jabs his hand out at the raccoon, the broom head blocking its only route of escape. The resolute confidence drops from his face in exchange for surprise as the critter does something entirely unexpected.

Quirin reels backward out of the root cellar with a face full of raccoon. It scrambles up over his head and onto a shoulder, coiling for a jump. The man whirls around with a frustrated shout, swiping at the unwanted passenger as it leaps for a counter top. The broom in his other hand catches on the hanging pot rack, and the clanging of copper and cast iron sends the bristle-tailed pest tearing across the counter toward the living room in a panic, knocking over a canister of flour and an entire spice rack in the process.

Quirin rises to his full height, jaw set tight. He stalks through the swirling white haze of flour toward the entry to the kitchen emerging in time to see his quarry bounding toward a surprised Varian. “Dad is everything ok? I heard -Oh!” The raccoon jumps straight into the boy’s arms. “Ruddiger!?”

Quirin stops in his tracks, confusion flickering in his eyes. “Ruddiger?” He intones carefully, like it’s a foreign concept. A glare settles on his face with the realization. _He named it._ Varian pales a shade, eyes wide like he’s been caught red-handed. “Varian you were supposed to be keeping the pests out, not… bringing them into our home to keep as pets!”

“What, no! Dad! My traps a-are… they’re working! I’ve been tracking o-our yield, and if my calculations are correct by the end of the season we-”

Quirin cuts him off, not in the mood for excuses, “Varian that is not the issue here. That is a raccoon. A pest. They don’t know when to stop eating, and they’re destructive...” He gestures at the chubby bundle of fur in Varian’s arms and then to the settling fog of flour in the kitchen to punctuate his words. “They are not pets!”

Varian wraps his arms around Ruddiger protectively, eyes searching and mouth hung open with dismay. Emboldened by the safety of Varian’s embrace, Ruddiger twists around to unleash a flood of irate chirps and barks. Quirin looks taken aback for a brief moment, but Varian finally finds his voice.

“Dad believe me I tried… he just kept coming back and… But he’s different! He won’t…” He begins to falter, glancing over toward the kitchen. They both know it’s a poor excuse.

“Varian.” Quirin warns.

“It won’t happen again Dad! He won’t cause any more trouble! You won’t even know he’s here!” He blurts out in the space of a breath. Varian squeezes Ruddiger almost too tightly, prompting the raccoon to squirm.

Quirin stares down at his son, clinging to a wriggling raccoon like his life depended on it. He scrunches his eyes shut as he pinches the bridge of his nose with his free hand and sighs. _How many times have you said something similar about your alchemy?_ It’s there on his tongue, but when he opens his eyes again and sees Varian staring back, pleading, he thinks better of it. “Listen son, that is a wild animal.” He works to keep his voice low and even. Patient. “If you want a pet we could get you a dog. I believe Wilhemine’s-”

“I don’t want a dog!” Varian snaps. If he means to sound angry the wavering of his voice betrays him.

Quirin’s hand drops back to his side, his fist clenching and expression hardening. “Varian this isn’t-”

A loud, urgent rapping at the front door grabs the attention of all three of them. There’s a short pause and then the muffled voice of one of the villagers can be heard through the heavy wood. “Quirin! It’s Harlan! Bonnie’s showing all the signs, you best come quick!”

“I’ll be right out, Harlan!” Quirin calls out as he takes a step toward Varian, prompting Ruddiger to jump out of his arms and shoot down the stairs to Varian’s lab. He ignores the raccoon and continues, softer now, “Harlan’s cow his calving. I promised I’d help him- Varian, look at me.” He takes a sharper tone to draw his son’s wandering eyes back to him, and hands over the broom. “You can clean up the mess in the kitchen, and when I get back, that raccoon better be gone.”

“But dad!”

“This is not up for discussion.” He gives Varian a hard look, his words terse. Cowed, the boy backs down without a word.

 _This is for his own good._ Steady in his conviction, Quirin doesn’t spare a glance back as he exits the house to continue his busy day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT:  
> I posted this at 5am and completely spaced on what I really wanted to say to everyone:  
> I would like to thank everyone who has read, left kudos, or commented so far. I appreciate every single one more than you know. Thanks for sharing this journey with me. ;_;


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